2 paragraphs of Michael Duffy's article in Time magazine about Bush's National Guard service

[Michael Eisenstadt]

Why Did He Miss The Physical?
No question so unsettles some former Guardsmen as much as this: 
If Bush did report, as he contends, why did he let his medical 
certification lapse around the same time—a full two years before 
his Guard commitment was up? Four years ago, the Bush campaign 
said Bush didn't undergo the physical because his family doctor 
was back in Texas. That explanation doesn't wash; only flight 
surgeons can perform Air Force exams, and there were plenty of 
those in Alabama. 

The official explanation has changed: the White House now says 
Bush didn't need to take the medical exam because he was no 
longer flying. But even if Bush wasn't planning a career in 
aviation, that explanation is difficult for other pilots to 
accept. Pilots routinely sacrifice everything to keep their 
"medical cert" current; the military is rife with stories of 
cheating by pilots to pass their physicals. And the government, 
which spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to train and keep 
its pilots flying, has never looked kindly on highly trained 
personnel, particularly pilots, standing down on their own. 
"There are certain things I expect from my pilots," said 
Major General Paul Weaver, who retired as head of the Air 
National Guard in 2002. "He should have kept current with his 
physicals." Some Guard veterans have speculated that Bush may 
have been dodging random drug tests, which were instituted 
in some military units as early as 1971. But there is no 
evidence to support that; in fact, the dentist who worked 
on Bush's teeth and who later became the commander of the 
base medical unit, told TIME that the Alabama Guard did not 
conduct random drug tests until the 1980s.